Regulatory priorities

Our regulatory priorities inform industry, consumers and other regulators of our areas of focus to address the most significant harms in the built environment.

We operate in an environment of significant change and uncertainty. While we work across all of our regulatory responsibilities, prioritising our finite resources helps us focus our efforts on what is most important to the Victorian community.

We are committed to protecting consumers from harm and the regulatory priorities outline its areas of regulatory focus where resources and regulatory effort will be directed.

Regulatory Policy Statement

We have refreshed our approach to how it regulates the building industry.

The Regulatory Policy Statement provides greater clarity about what is expected of us as a regulator, explains to consumers the powers and enforcement tools we have under the Building Act, and outlines our expectations of the builders, plumbers and other practitioners who we register and licence.

Ensuring the building industry builds safe, sustainable and compliant buildings is a responsibility shared by all players in the system – practitioners, building surveyors and partner regulators.

The Statement resets our regulatory posture to put consumer interests at the forefront of what we do.

Prioritisation principles

We identify harms in the built environment and focuses our resources on activities and behaviours that pose the greatest harm (or risk of harm) in accordance with its risk appetite and other risk management strategies.

We look at ways to drive behavioural change across the industry. We take a graduated and integrated approach to choosing the most appropriate regulatory tool from education and communication to enforcement — minimising the regulatory burden while maximising public value for regulatory effort.

We take a risk-based approach to prioritising our work and making the best use of its resources. We focus our regulatory efforts on protecting the health and safety of building occupants and improving outcomes for consumers and the building and plumbing industries. Prioritisation is based on our three principles.

Our prioritisation approach

1. Prioritise identifying and addressing systemic issues.
2. Prioritise harms with the greatest impact on community safety.
3. Prioritise harms with the greatest impact on the quality and sustainability of the built environment.

Setting our regulatory priorities

We use data, intelligence and research to determine the most significant harms to the built environment to inform our regulatory priorities. We do this by:

• Analysing and gathering data
• Identifying new and emerging trends and risks
• Conducting and supporting relevant research
• Collaborating with co-regulators and other industry stakeholders
• Assessing and analysing the consumer experience
• Assessing the impacts of harms on consumers (life/safety, health, finance)
• Assessing the impacts of harms on industry.

Our regulatory priorities

We focus our resources and activities and use of its regulatory tools on the priorities listed below. We work in collaboration with other regulators, agencies and partners to find optimal strategies to prevent harms that may benefit from joint regulatory effort.